RVS Group to set up medical college in Balangir; MOU to be signed soon
November 8th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given green signal for the RVS Educational Trust to set up the proposed medical college and hospital in Balangir. Approving the recommendations of a high-level committee, he has asked the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC) to go ahead with an MoU for the purpose.
… Coimbatore-based RVS Group of Institutions, led by Dr KV Kuppusamy, is managing 87 educational institutions in the country. … The WODC had invited expression of interest for the medical college and hospital in Balangir last year in view of Shree Balaji Education and Charitable Trust backing out of the project.
The RVS Group would invest at least Rs 100 crore, while the WODC would provide a Rs 10-crore grant and 25 acres of land in Balangir. The medical college would have an intake capacity of 100 with a 300-bed hospital at its initial stage. Subsequently it would be enhanced to a 500-bed hospital and gradually to a 1,000-bed super speciality hospital, said sources in the WODC.
Entry Filed under: Balangir-Titlagarh area,Medical College, Balangir
4 Writeup
1. Purna C. Mishra | November 8th, 2009 at 10:33 am
I hope I am wrong and Bolangir will get a medical college and a good quality hospital. I doubt it will happen any time soon. This is going around for 10 years and the government could not pull in either of the three hospitals. If they could not get a medical college in PP mode in Rourkela, how they could get it in Bolangir. The governmment has no heath care policy or plan. It is a set of whimsical adhoc decisions. If the Government is really serious, they should set up these medical colleges as Government funded medical colleges. They do not get quality faculties to teach in Bhubanseswar for these private medical colleges. How do they get faculties for a private medical college in Bolangir. The government if serious should develeop a hierarchical set of hospital chain with regional super specialities in mid sized cities like Bolangir. Then the government should set up several government medical colleges attached to these regional super speciality hospitals. If smaller states like Kerala could have lot more government funded medical and engineering colleges, then why not Orissa?
2. Umashankar Das | November 8th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
A PPP enterprise will obviously look at a viable revenue model when it comes forward in setting up an hospital. Perhaps, that was the primary reason why private hospitals did not come up in Western Orissa in the past.
Last budget there was an announcement for a tax exemption in Medical colleges/hospitals in Tier-2 / Tier-3 cities. Therefore there is hope for the current venture. There is though definite cause for disgruntlement over past issues.
I do agree that the state Govt should fund certain Medical colleges in the state. The situation of the budget is not like 10 years back. Sound economics predicts that investment in Medical facilities will lead to improvement in health indicators of the state.
Short-term plans like rs 1 Kg rice might have temporary benefit , but, Medical sector investment will only help the state in the longer run. This though is a politically very sensitive decision.
3. alok | November 10th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I hope this is not a repeat story of Rourkela.The medical college at Rourkela which was taken by Hi-tech group seem to be nowhere and the ESIC is still a distant dream,thanks to our state govt and especially Naveen patnaik.
4. Umesh Panda | November 27th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
If the govt. has a little seriousness in providing healthcare facilities to poor, instead of ppp mode it should initiate for govt medical colleges in poor regions like Balangir the way it is trying to establish in Baleswar.